Two days ago, Ming Lu had actually found the guitar.

The luthier’s craftsmanship was excellent. The wood from the surfboard was hardly wasted, all of it cleverly embedded into the body of the guitar following its curves. But having been thrown in a corner of the storeroom for ten years, the guitar’s body had come unglued and fallen apart, the strings were covered in rust, and its tone had become soft and dull.

Fortunately, being by the sea meant it wasn’t overly dry, so the warping and cracking of the top panel weren’t severe. Ming Lu had it sent to a professional technician for repairs and had new strings put on. The restored guitar was now in Luo Chi’s room.

The reason he didn’t tell Luo Chi immediately… was because he didn’t know how to explain this matter to him.

The current Luo Chi didn’t remember that Auntie Ren had passed away.

“Sir,” Ming Lu said in a low voice, “I asked Xun Zhen, and he also thinks… it’s better not to say anything for now.”

Ming Weiting slowed his movements, carefully supporting Luo Chi’s head and neck, and took a soft pillow to place underneath.

Luo Chi’s breathing was steady, but it was as if he still had worries in his sleep. He was curled up on the sofa, his brow unconsciously furrowed.

Ming Lu hesitated for a long while, then tentatively asked, “Should we say Mrs. Ren is on a business trip? There’s an important deal she has to negotiate in person, so she can’t come back for now…”

“He’s in so much pain,” Ming Weiting said in a low voice. “How could Mrs. Ren not come?”

Ming Lu was taken aback, then he also realized that this explanation clearly couldn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Luo Chengxiu would have thrown his newly found, injured son into a hospital while he went abroad to negotiate business for three months… but Ren Shuangmei would never have done such a thing, no matter what.

Luo Chi’s illness was definitely not as simple as a broken leg. He couldn’t be unaware of it himself, nor could he be completely without a premonition about his own physical condition.

Xun Zhen had come to see him. Luo Chi’s recovery these past few days was better than expected. With another week or two of recuperation, he could start preparing for surgery. At that time, he would have to go back to the hospital for many check-ups, and the medication used would be more taxing on his body.

If Ren Shuangmei were still around, she would have thrown aside even the most important business to rush back and be with Luo Chi.

There was no logical way to explain it away.

Even without remembering much, Luo Chi was actually still very smart and perceptive. He wouldn’t just accept all information without a hint of doubt… Luo Chi had probably long since discovered that Mr. Shadow and Uncle Lu were hiding something from him but didn’t know how to bring it up.

It was probably because he sensed this that Luo Chi had suddenly thought of the game of Truth or Dare and pulled them in to play.

But to tell the truth…

Ming Lu stood where he was, ultimately troubled. “Sir, Huo Miao has only been happy for a few days.”

While this childish, carefree version of Luo Chi was certainly not complete, Luo Chi was currently recuperating. Maintaining a relaxed and happy mood was especially important.

Moreover, Ming Lu actually couldn’t help but think that Luo Chi’s past life had been too hard. To be able to have fun for a while like this, without having to worry about anything, was something he deserved.

Ming Weiting didn’t speak, just brushed away Luo Chi’s bangs and touched his forehead with the back of his hand.

He had meant to check if Luo Chi had a fever or night sweats, but he suddenly sensed something and bent down to speak softly, “Huo Miao?”

Ming Lu was stunned and looked over in astonishment.

The medicine Luo Chi took at night had strong sedative components. Once he fell into a deep sleep, it was very difficult to be woken up. He had already taken his medicine tonight and should have been extremely drowsy long ago, ready for Ming Weiting to carry him to rest.

Ming Lu was about to walk over quickly, but he saw Ming Weiting shake his head slightly and stopped in his tracks.

Ming Weiting raised his hand and covered Luo Chi’s eyes.

Luo Chi’s eyes were closed, and he was curled up quietly on the sofa, not moving or making a sound, his eyelashes trembling silently against his palm.

Only after the faint tremor stopped did Ming Weiting move his hand away, lift Luo Chi out of the sofa, and stand up.

He shook his head silently at Ming Lu and carried Luo Chi out of the living room.

Walking up the stairs to the second floor, Ming Weiting raised his arm to hold Luo Chi’s shoulders and back, letting him lean against him, then slowly patted the thin, slender back in his arms.

Luo Chi couldn’t be completely oblivious. The changes in this villa, the state of his own body, the fact that Auntie Ren hadn’t returned after so long… the answer wasn’t hard to find. It was just a matter of how to try to believe and accept it after finding the answer.

Luo Chi had many regrets about this matter.

He hadn’t been able to see Auntie Ren for the last time, hadn’t been able to fulfill her last wish to scatter her ashes in the sea and travel the world, and hadn’t been able to tell her in time that he had dreamed of being a family with her more than anything.

Because of this, Luo Chi had always felt guilty, always tying himself to Auntie Ren’s grave. This was the real reason he had never left this place.

Luo Chi was worried that Auntie Ren, sleeping alone in that cold, luxurious grave, with no one to talk to, would feel bored.

Auntie Ren loved liveliness so much, loved excitement and stimulation so much; how could she stand being bored.

…

Ming Lu followed quietly and pushed open the door to the second-floor bedroom.

He watched as Ming Weiting placed Luo Chi on the bed, then skillfully arranged the pillows and straightened the quilt. He turned on the ambient light under the bed and silently exited the room, closing the door.

Ming Weiting tucked the corner of the quilt in securely and sat on the edge of the bed.

The lighting in the bedroom was dim and soft, very comfortable on the eyes.

The terrace indeed had a great view and was quite spacious. The moonlight dyed half of the floor tiles silver-white. The light coming in from the window fell on the carpet, extending to the edge of the guitar stand.

The room was exceptionally quiet. Just sitting by the bed, one could hear the sound of the waves not far away.

Ming Weiting sat for a while, then reached out and gently stroked Luo Chi’s hair. “Huo Miao.”

Before Uncle Lu returned to the villa, he had been unable to answer a question, so he chose a dare and promised to find Luo Chi a peach-flavored candy tomorrow.

Actually, the question wasn’t anything special. Luo Chi just wanted him to casually tell a story about something that had happened in the past.

…

As for the reason he couldn’t answer, it was simply that Ming Weiting hadn’t prepared in advance.

He was actually not good at chatting at all, and even less so at talking about himself. He couldn’t think of a suitable story that had happened that he could describe without carefully choosing his words.

Ming Weiting placed his hand over Luo Chi’s eyes again. This time, the eyelashes against his palm were quiet, without the slightest flutter.

“Five years ago,” Ming Weiting said, “my father passed away.”

Ming Weiting was silent for a short while, then continued, “During that time, I didn’t know what I was feeling.”

The Ming family’s kinship was distant. Ming Weiting had been raised by Ming Lu and didn’t remember any particularly warm memories related to his family, but similarly, there had been no conflicts or harm.

The previous master of the Ming family had died accidentally in a shipwreck, and the situation at the time was very chaotic. The next three years or so were basically spent dealing with this matter, leaving little spare time for anyone to think deeply.

But even so, when he occasionally sat down and suddenly became aware of it, Ming Weiting would still remember the sense of loss he felt when he first heard the news.

Sadness and longing came later. The initial feeling was just a sense of being lost.

Someone with whom you have a close connection suddenly disappears, and can never be found again, a strong feeling of being lost and not knowing which way to go suddenly arises.

So even though it was far from being able to empathize completely, he could still imagine why Luo Chi didn’t cry at Mrs. Ren’s funeral.

“I saw you ten years ago,” Ming Weiting stroked Luo Chi’s hair. “I didn’t get off the ship to find you then because I was thinking, how could there be such a cool flame, no one should disturb him.”

He didn’t know that Luo Chi himself was unaware of this, so he memorized the word “cool” and repeated it to him.

The Ming family had always lived on a cruise ship, occasionally getting off to vacation on an island. No matter how luxurious a cruise ship is, it has boundaries. No matter how large an island is, it’s surrounded by water. Those boundaries should not be used to confine that flame.

“I regret this.”

Ming Weiting said, “I only thought that there shouldn’t be boundaries, but you lost your home that year.”

Luo Chi’s eyes were covered by his hand. His chest stopped moving at the last word, as if his body had suddenly forgotten how to breathe.

Ming Weiting did not move his hand.

He felt Luo Chi shaking his head.

Perhaps the fog was too far removed from the outside world, or perhaps the medicine he had taken had already taken effect. The strength Luo Chi could muster was too weak; the force of his headshake was almost imperceptible.

But Luo Chi was still stubbornly shaking his head, unwilling to let him share even a little of the blame.

So Ming Weiting also changed his words. “…But.”

He sensed Luo Chi stop to listen, so he continued, “But, given what I would have done back then, if I had gotten off the ship, I probably would have knocked on your door to invite you to become a Ming.”

The Ming family had always been like this. Blood ties weren’t really that important. When they saw a talented person, they would invite them to join. Uncle Lu was once a hotel bellboy, invited onto the ship by his grandfather in his teens, and had weathered storms for nearly sixty years.

The time he would have chosen to get off the ship wouldn’t have been too early. Luo Chi would have likely been fast asleep by then. It would have probably been Auntie Ren who opened the door, encountering an uninvited guest who came late at night to change Huo Miao’s surname.

“And then,” Ming Weiting imitated his way of speaking, “Auntie would have brandished a broom and chased me out.”

Luo Chi let out a cough.

Ming Weiting saw the corners of Luo Chi’s mouth suddenly press together, and a warmth suddenly spread through his heart.

He didn’t know the origin of this warmth. Sensing the gentle stir of air from the eyelashes against his palm, he moved his hand away.

The light in the room wasn’t so bright as to be harsh. Luo Chi opened his eyes and saw him at a glance.

Ming Weiting met Luo Chi’s gaze.

…

Unlike the past few days, this wasn’t the carefree, but also memory-less Luo Chi, nor was he separated by a fog.

Luo Chi’s eyes were quiet and clear. Because of the scenario he had just imagined, those eyes curved up a little, with no trace of tears.

Ming Weiting called him in a low voice, “Huo Miao.”

Luo Chi’s eyes curved even more. He looked at Mr. Shadow, wanting to gather the strength to speak, but Ming Weiting gently pressed his wrist. “Listen to me.”

Through their constant companionship these past few days, Ming Weiting had been learning and was finally beginning to understand Luo Chi’s thoughts and feelings. He touched Luo Chi’s eyelashes, and seeing him blink, his own heart relaxed, and his expression softened.

He thought of the thirteen-year-old Luo Chi, who single-handedly held the memorial service for Auntie Ren, single-handedly returned the courtesies to the guests, and single-handedly became Auntie Ren’s child.

Luo Chi absolutely would not cry at that time, not just because of the intense bewilderment of suddenly being left all alone, but more so because Luo Chi would never let Auntie Ren worry.

The day he discovered the conch shell was lost, Luo Chi had instinctively learned how to hide a part of himself.

Luo Chi had lost his home overnight. He was no longer protected, and there was no one left to teach him what to do, so this became the only way he could keep Auntie Ren from worrying.

That night he was sent out, the night he was crushed by the unbelievable bad news, almost suffocating, the bone-deep pain that he could only endure by biting down hard on his arm—all of it was stuffed into the safest place, hidden away without a single crack for ten years.

“We won’t let Auntie worry,” Ming Weiting said softly. “We’ll hide.”

Luo Chi blinked, looking up with some curiosity.

Ming Weiting put his arm around his shoulders and back, lifting him from a lying position.

This time, Luo Chi tried his best to cooperate with his movements, but the strength he could muster was ultimately too weak. He still needed his arms to be held before he could lean steadily against the headboard.

Ming Weiting helped him sit up securely, then stood up and took his own jacket from the coat rack.

This jacket had been specially brought up by Ming Lu and placed in the room. Ming Weiting wasn’t in the habit of wearing cologne, and he had stopped smoking after he started taking care of Luo Chi, so it didn’t have any particular smell.

Ming Weiting returned to the bedside and draped the jacket over Luo Chi.

The sudden darkness made Luo Chi startle.

He wasn’t actually comfortable with this kind of darkness where he couldn’t perceive the outside world. A lurking unease spread silently. Luo Chi’s breathing quickened slightly, and he could barely resist the urge to get out from under it immediately.

But the next moment, someone reached through that darkness and held him steady again.

Ming Weiting would hold him, mostly because it was inconvenient for Luo Chi to move, or because his body was too weak, with no strength left.

Because it was to care for someone, Ming Weiting would always carefully control his strength and pay special attention to where he applied force, to prevent any part of Luo Chi from being unsupported or uncomfortably pressed.

The force this time was different from all the previous times. Luo Chi was almost completely restrained by that force.

He was almost restrained to the point of being completely unable to move. Or perhaps that wasn’t the purpose; the other person was holding him tightly, using force like this to pull him out of something with all their might—

Luo Chi coughed out loud. He was sitting in the newly renovated bedroom of the villa—of course he was well aware the villa had been renovated, he was well aware this was not the familiar Sea-view Villa he knew—he was sitting in the bedroom, yet it was as if he had been forcibly dragged out of a dark, icy sea.

He thought he was dead, and then a force was dragging him upwards.

He was being pulled down by the seawater, but someone was insisting that he go up.

Luo Chi couldn’t stop the low, choked coughs. He was no longer in a hurry to get out from under the jacket. Through the jacket, he fumbled for the arm that was pulling him up.

He squeezed the strength from his very bones and sent it all to that hand.

“Huo Miao,” Ming Weiting said, “a person can’t be trapped by a grave.”

Luo Chi gripped his arm.

“The Ming family has been at sea for generations. Some are sent to land, some are scattered into the sea. After death, people are free. They become the wind, become clouds, become a wave.”

Ming Weiting said, “Because anything is possible, there is a hypothesis.”

“There is a hypothesis that Auntie became a wave and found the lost conch shell.”

“The ocean currents at the bottom of the sea can only move in a certain direction, they can’t turn. It was slow going, carrying the conch.”

“And that fan was very terrible, always running around.”

“They missed each other many times, it took many years.”

Ming Weiting was not at all good at telling stories, especially unprepared content like this. He would say a sentence, then pause, and then continue.

“One day, Auntie finally found this fan. She was tired and angry, so she rolled up the conch with a wave and threw it.”

Ming Weiting thought for a moment. “It smashed on this fan’s head.”

Luo Chi, in his arms, coughed and laughed out loud.

Luo Chi laughed so hard his whole body trembled. His breathing became more and more rapid, and the hand gripping Ming Weiting’s arm also began to shake slightly.

He curled up bit by bit, slowly hiding himself inside the jacket.

“And then,” Ming Weiting said in a low voice, “I picked it up.”

The day Luo Chi had just remembered the conch shell, with Ming Lu’s reminder, Ming Weiting had once given this answer—at that time, he didn’t know the contents of the conch, he just said it to soothe Luo Chi, so that answer didn’t really count.

But after that day, Luo Chi didn’t ask him again.

Luo Chi didn’t ask him, so he had to make up a story himself, give the answer himself.

Ming Weiting used the jacket to hide him, so Auntie Ren wouldn’t see Huo Miao being sad.

Through the jacket, next to Luo Chi’s left ear, Ming Weiting slowly said the answer again.

“I picked it up,” Ming Weiting said. “So I came to get you.”

“Now.”

Ming Weiting asked softly, “Do I have the honor of inviting you home?”